


How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cherry Bomb Red

by newredshoes



Category: Ten Inch Hero
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tish is really good with first dates. Sort of. It's everything after that that takes some getting used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cherry Bomb Red

**Author's Note:**

> Infinite thanks to my marvelous betas: the incomparable Lilacsigil and St. Aurafina, and Varadia, who told me what this story was about!
> 
> Written for Ladybug218

Tish shuts the door to her bedroom, leans her back against it and slides down, eyes closed. One hand is already unbuttoning her shorts; she's playing her fingers over her face and mouth with the other. For once, something different actually happened to her. She can't stop smiling.

There he is, right in her mind's eye, and Piper might be the artist, but Tish has an exceptionally vivid imagination herself, thank you. Priestly pushes both doors to the shop open at once, and everyone turns to look at him, and he grins and— 

She frowns, and scrunches up her nose. That's not how it happened. He slipped through the front door and shuffled up to the counter. He'd walked like a guy who never got over being named Boaz. The line of Tish's mouth sours, and she stops—no, she pauses. She rolls her eyes upward, takes a breath and tries again.

*

"Really?"

"Well, at some point, yeah, I guess."

Tish snaps back to the real world as Piper sets down her mason jar, the water muddy with too much paint. She watches from behind the counter, fingers splayed over her order pad. "You want some advice?" Piper says, her lips quirking at the corners.

Jen tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and leans on her forearms, hunching her shoulders. "Somehow I think I'll be getting a lot from you two." She shoots Tish a shy smile, and Tish has just enough presence of mind to return it.

Piper slides into the seat opposite Jen. "So, we've established that sex is pretty great on its own."

Jen dips her head. "I can only imagine."

"You've been practicing, right?" Jen turns red and slouches back in her seat. Piper grins. "Jen? It's a thousand times better when it's someone you care about it. Seriously, though, don't worry about it. When the time comes, it's going to be just wonderful for you two." She glances at Tish for backup.

On cue, Tish smiles. "Cross my heart, she's telling the truth."

Piper nods. "You'll know when it's time."

Jen lifts her head a little. "Well, you guys are my panel of experts. You're both way better at figuring this out than I am."

Tish snorts, and picks up her pad. "Right."

"Apron!" bellows Priestly from the back room, without preamble. He strolls in a moment later, wearing his ragged jeans and shitkicker boots, and a shirt that reads _Without Me, it's just Aweso._ Automatically, Tish reaches beneath the counter and tosses him a rolled-up apron, which he catches with one hand. "Thank you," he sing-songs, opening the apron with a snap of his bare wrists. He catches Tish's eye, and shoots her a crooked smile, and Tish's body goes into romantic cliche overdrive at the sight. She wants to tease him, or maybe throw something at him, something familiar, but it's still startling to see him in such an ordinary palette.

(Later that shift, she watches him stand over the grill, drumming one hand against his leg and tonguing the place where his labret piercing isn't.)

*

The truth is, Priestly was an absolute gentleman on their first date. It was totally disconcerting.

Well, okay, to be fair, he was totally self-conscious about his junker of a car, to the point where Tish threatened to start talking about how hard it was to get a decent pedicure in Santa Monica if he didn't shut up with the acroneurotics. Plus there was the slightly mortifying part where he started rambling about Isobel Varley, and Tish learned way more about the world's most tattooed senior woman than she'd ever wanted to know. But mostly what Tish remembers is his hand on the small of her back as he held doors for her.

She'd stared at his hands maybe too much while they were out at dinner on Main Street. His fingernails were still black at the edges where he hadn't scrubbed hard enough to get the polish off.

The kiss at the end of the evening had been really nice, though.

*

If this had been Jimmy, she'd already know what his six-pack felt like naked under her hands.

If this had been Brent, she'd already have his cologne on her skin.

If this had been Andrew—was it Andrew?, she'd already have agreed to see if maybe _that_ would give her that special feeling.

If this had been Peter (and who could forget him?), she'd already have convinced him that she really would make it worth his while not to videotape.

With Priestly, she sees the openings: the bumps and the touches and the Beatrice-and-Benedick banter, but instead she makes a joke about Shakespeare and video games, because yeah, she paid attention in school a little too, and the brilliance of his laugh startles them both.

*

Tish has really great sex dreams. Don't everybody be surprised all at once. The morning after this one, she actually has to write some of it down, because doggone if she doesn't have some ridiculously amazing ideas while she sleeps. Priestly's already at the shop when she gets in, and she does an honest-to-goodness double-take before she remembers which reality she's working in here.

"Where's Piper?" she asks, fiddling with her hair sticks.

Priestly gives her a knowing wag of his eyebrows. "Late."

"Helpful as always," Tish scoffs, and logs in to the registers.

"Julia was going to a sleepover," Trucker volunteers from his seat at the counter, as he consults a list penciled on handmade paper.

Tish smirks. "Just Julia?" She pushes past Priestly behind the counter, and when they're bottlenecked, wedged against each other, she lifts herself on her toes and runs her hands through his sandy short hair, no one color.

"That's not sanitary," he points out, and she smirks, cupping her palms over the unshaped stubble darkening his cheeks. He leans a bit closer. "You're like a walking health code violation now."

She pinches the sides of his stomach and he hairpins backward, bent double. "You've got so much better than that," she crows softly, making a note to herself: _ticklish._

(Later, one of the semi-regulars, a little old lady who always gets a ten-inch, actually squawks and gasps at the counter. "Priestly, my word! I didn't recognize you!" He tells her he's being subversive in new and interesting ways. "Oh," she says, then continues, hopefully, "When you're done with that, are we still on for you trying purple?")

*

"Little help here?"

The back doors flap open, and an enormous box overflowing with arugula staggers through. Tish hurries forward and tries to help guide the load to the counter. Priestly hefts it down and cocks an eyebrow at Tish. Today his shirt reads _Missouri Loves Company,_ and he's got cuffs on both wrists. "Hey, I guess every little bit counts." Tish shoves him and walks away, hips swaying.

"Sorry that took so long!" Trucker shambles in, scratching at his hairline.

"We ran into Zo," Priestly announces, dripping significance. The look Trucker shoots them all is injured.

"Now that's not fair. She helped us get what we needed, didn't she? And she suggested that new recipe for—"

Priestly spreads his hands. "I'm gonna be grilling organic zucchini for the next five years, is all I'm saying." Trucker turns to Jen, who lends a sympathetic ear to his newfound enthusiasm for olive oil and artichokes. Priestly reaches out and thwaps Tish on the shoulder with a rolled-up paper. "Hey, since you're all She-Hulk, come help me with the rutabagas."

Tish swivels to stare at Trucker. "Seriously?"

He shrugs, looking sweetly pleased with himself. "She was very persuasive about the rutabagas." Jen and Piper just stand there and watch, until Tish has to heave a sigh and push past Priestly toward the back of the shop. He follows without a word until they're outside. Tish edges close to the Causemobile; the metal is giving off heat that licks at the skin on her wrists and thighs.

He stops in front of the open trunk but doesn't reach for the box of aromatically organic vegetables. "Can I ask you a question?" he says, with absolutely no segue. "Well, another question?"

Tish folds her arms and looks at him. "Shoot."

He glances away for a moment, the sun catching a tint of red in his hair she's never seen before. "You do want to sleep with me, right?" Tish knits her brow. "I mean, eventually?" She doesn't answer, and he sticks his hands in his pockets, his intention to backpedal all over his face. "Maybe I should have done that in a less blunt way," he says, after another awkward pause.

She tilts her head. "Yeah, maybe you should have."

Priestly squirms. The tattoos on his arms shift in and out from under his sleeve. "I just want to make sure where we are before it gets intractable. I mean, there's no point in sticking with something if it's not working, you know?"

"Priestly." Tish thins her lips. "I know you're horny, but the sex isn't the endgame here, is it?"

"What? No!" His eyes go wide. "It's just. You know."

"Nice?"

"Yeah," he blurts.

"Okay," she says. "Now I get a question."

"Is that how it works?"

"When you ask me something like that, yeah." She cants her head. "When you think about us..."

He's all at attention. "Yeah?"

She narrows her eyes. "What do you look like?"

Priestly stops. He frowns at her. "Honestly, I'm pretty fixated on you."

Tish smiles, but she doesn't let up. "Come on. Think about it for a second."

He pauses, eyes rolling up like he's asking advice from his hair. "I look like me," he says finally.

"When _I_ think about you," Tish says, with a poke at his shoulder, "it only works when you look normal."

He blinks. "Normal?" he repeats, hesitantly.

"Yeah, you know. Like Priestly. Not New Coke Boaz. It's like." She offers a one-shouldered shrug, and bobs her head a little. "Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be—you know?"

He doesn't recover for a moment; when he does, he just frowns. "Did you just try to do Nirvana at me in a Top 40 karaoke voice?"

Her lips thin. "You're going to fixate on that, aren't you."

He crooks half a grin. "It was pretty funny. I don't see why I shouldn't."

"Other than that it's annoying and totally not true?" Tish smirks back at him. "Me neither." She twists her ankle, letting her flip-flop dangle off her toes. "Aren't you impressed that I knew Nirvana?"

Priestly shrugs. "Ah, well, you hang out with the right people long enough, you pick up a few things, I guess." He gives her a sidelong look. "So, did we actually decide something on the other thing?"

"I have a hair fetish that I didn't know about," she says solemnly.

He huffs. "Now you tell me."

She prods him in the stomach with her knuckles. It's pleasantly solid. "There's time."

He pauses. "You're not... telling me to change back just so I'll sleep with you, right? Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose, in a way?"

Tish takes a fistful of his t-shirt and pulls him close. "Shockingly, you're overthinking this." Inches from his mouth, she grins. "It's a good thing I like you so much."

One hand rests on the small of her back. "Just my luck, right?"

"Don't be so selfish," she retorts, and shuts him up like a lady—with a kiss.


End file.
